Evaluating Education Programs for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

Program Strategy and Evaluation
Written By Katie Chandler

Client: Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center | Location: Washington, DC

 
 

We worked with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center to help shape and measure the impact of education programs to complement a new museum exhibition.

OVERVIEW

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) opened its first museum exhibition in a decade—Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond—in September 2024 with a residency at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). We conducted formative evaluation leading up to the opening of this new exhibition to help inform the development of education programs. We also conducted summative evaluation of the education programs to understand teacher experience and impact.

APPROACH

Our approach involved two phases of evaluation:

  • Formative evaluation focus group data from local teachers

  • Summative evaluation interviews with teachers who participated in the education programs

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

In both formative and summative evaluations, we found that teachers were enthusiastic to bring in AANHPI content into their classroom, but have limited background knowledge in this area. Teachers also said that it is difficult for them to find and vet AANHPI stories and history themselves in the limited time they have for lesson planning. They saw high potential for meaningful and educational program experiences related to themes of tradition, culture, community, and identity that come through in the Sightlines exhibition, and were excited about potential professional development and field trip opportunities.

Based on the evaluation results, we recommended that teachers would benefit from foundational framing to build their confidence in incorporating AANHPI stories and clear guidance on how APAC’s resources connect to key historical and cultural themes. We also recommended APAC incorporate more opportunities for teachers to link workshop activities to their specific classroom contexts.

Katie Chandler

Katie brings a decade of experience in market research and evaluation to her position as Senior Researcher at Kera Collective.

Katie’s love of anthropology, history, and applied research gives her a unique balance of curiosity about human thought and behavior and practicality to translate insights into meaningful actions. 

Katie enjoys using mixed methods to tease out the complexity and nuance in audiences’ experiences with museums and other informal learning organizations. She particularly enjoys working on projects that explore people’s relationship with the past and with the natural world.

She has published articles in several leading museum publications and frequently attends and presents at professional conferences like the American Association for State and Local History’s annual conference.  She currently serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Museum Education.

Outside the (home) office, Katie enjoys running and exploring Richmond’s many parks with her family and her dog.

Katie’s favorite museum at the moment is the Science Museum of Virginia.

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Public Programs Evaluation for the Asian Pacific American Center
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